Posted tagged ‘Family book’

I finally got around to doing a job that I’ve been putting off for AGES – making a family book for panel.

Initially, I found it hard because it is extremely strange to make a book for panel that I’m then supposed to adapt to fit a child when linked. When you know nothing about a child, how can you make an appropriate photo book? I fretted over this a lot before I finally gave up and just decided to make one aimed at my ideal age etc. and be prepared to redo it completely if necessary.

Months and months ago I bought a little scrapbook from paperchase. All the examples of family books I’ve seen are large flowery books which really didn’t feel very ‘me’. So I went with a bright blue book with huge cartoon animal faces on the front. I’m worried that social workers/foster carers will disapprove but it fits my personality and is aimed at a child not adults. Then, I took assorted photographs of my house and family to include and hid them away so I could ignore the issue of actually having to put the book together.

However, with a panel date looming I felt I should get my act together and finally do it. As I’d already bought the book and printed the photographs, it was actually relatively quick to put together. In true ‘me’ style, I wrote a plan first of what I wanted to include on each page so I could change things before I set loose with the glue.

When I was considering a slightly older child, I had big plans about including lovely sentences about all the wonderful things we could do in each room (e.g. this is where we can bake cakes and cook tasty meals) but this just didn’t seem appropriate for a much younger baby/toddler. So once again, I decided to forget about trying to impress the panel and make something suitable for a baby (who, to be honest, probably couldn’t care less about what I write on each page) and this is how it went…

A first page which said ‘Hello…’ (to be jazzed up later’ followed by a picture of me ‘Mummy says hello’. Then, photographs of the house and different rooms and each one has a short statement saying ‘Somewhere to…’ (cook, sleep, play). Then, I included photographs of my family (and a very cute teddy bear) with ‘___________ says hello’. The final page says ‘we can’t wait to meet you’ and I intend to put a picture of the child on there but I’m not 100% happy with that so may change it.

Overall, it is very simple but I’m really pleased with it. The pages are bright and colourful with full size photographs and short statements in a huge font. It does the job and if they want me to change it, I can do so.

PS I also bought a Whoozit fabric album which I’ve put a few pictures in as the baby can then handle it without worrying about it getting broken. I really like this idea and some of the pages are crinkly/chewable so it’s almost like a toy!